College and Research Libraries Selected Reference Books of 1994 Eileen Mcilvaine D his article follows the pattern set by the semiannual series initiated by the late Constance M. Winchell more than forty years ago and continued by Eugene Sheehy. Because the purpose of the list is to present a s~lection of recent scholarly and general works, it does not pretend to be either well-balanced or compre- hensive. A brief round up of new editions of standard works is provided at the end of the articles. Code numbers (such as AD540 and 1CJ310) have been used to refer to titles in the Guide to Reference Books, lOth ed. (Chicago: ALA, 1986) and the Supplement . .. Covering Materials from 1985-1990 (Chicago: 1992). DICTIONARIES Juba to Jive: A Dictionary of African-American Slang. Ed. and with an Introduction by Clarence Major. New York: Viking; Pen- guin, 1994. XXXV, 548p. $29.95 (ISBN 0- 670-85264-3). LC 93-11748. For twenty years after Clarence Major compiled the Dictionary of Afro-American Slang (1970. 127p. AD97), he collected additional words and phrases popular among black speakers, studied scholarly works on African-American speech, pe- rused fiction and autobiography to pro- duce this greatly expanded and well- referenced guide-Juba to Jive. Three times the size of its predecessor, Juba to Jive not only lists terms and defines them but also attempts to elucidate the defini- tion by frequently including explana- tory comments and by sometimes stating an implied meaning alongside the literal one. Each term is assigned, to the extent possible, a milieu with which it is asso- ciated, be it the jazz and blues world, the drug culture, the pimp and prostitute milieu, youth or street culture, etc. An attempt is made to locate the expression geographically, to provide a date span during which the word, phrase, or ex- pression was most popular, and to give, where necessary, an example of usage. Most usage quotations are drawn from a list of cited sources and indicated by an acronym. Unfortunately the list of sources is not arranged alphabetically by acronym, making the look-up unneces- sarily complicated. Juba to Jive, though lacking etymologi- cal detail, is comprehensive, thorough, and scholarly while being easy to use. It does justice to its mission to "represent African-American speakers in every sec- tion of the country, from as early as the 1620s through the 1990s"(Introd.). It should be part of every library's collec- tion.-O.dC. CHRONOLOGIES Cowan, Thomas Dale. Timelines of Afri- can-American History: 500 Years of Black Achievement. New York: Berkley, 1994. 368p. $15 (ISBN 0-3995-2127-5). LC 94- 12771. Time lines of African-American History is a treasure trove of factual information about African-American individuals and events that affected African Americans as a group. Reaching back to 1492 and continuing through 1993-though not every year is represented-it organizes the year's entries under one or more of Eileen Mcilvaine is Head of Reference and Collections, Butler Library, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027. Although it appears under a byline, this list is a project of the reference departments of Columbia University Libraries, and notes are signed with the initials of one of the following staff members: Kathe Chipman, Barbara Sykes-Austin, Avery Library; Mary Cargill, Olha della Cava, Robert H. Scott, Sarah Spurgin, Junko Stuveras, Butler Library. 133 134 College & Research Libraries the following headings: Exploration, Politics and Civil Rights, Religion and Education, Business and Employment, Statistics, the Military, Literat~re and Journalism, Science and Technology, Sports, Visual Arts, and Performing Arts. This makes it possible to trace these themes across the years. The entries are clear, declarative sentences. There is an attempt to place the data into the broader national context by supplying the barest of references to contemporary events, as well as to single out, here and there, individual benchmarks for more thorough treatment in the wide margin of the page. Though the factual information con- tained in this reference book is most easily retrieved by date, there is a back- of-the-book index. Personal and corpo- rate names, and titles predominate, making it difficult to retrieve informa- tion on such topics as, for example, bus- ing or police brutality, or to find occupational and income statistics, or to track developments by state. On the whole, however, the book ad- mirably fulfills its purpose of being "a guide to the central facts and key infor- mation necessary for an understanding of the black experience itself as well as of its true place as an integral part of the American experience" (Introd.).-O.dC. Trager, James. The Women's Chronology: A Year-by-Year Record from Prehistory to tJ:le Present. New York: Holt, 1994. 787p. $40 (ISBN 0-8050-2975-3). LC 93-41513. Olsen, Kirstin. Chronology of Women's History. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1994. 506p. $39.95 (ISBN 0-313-28803- 8). LC 93-50542. These two chronologies point out the difficulties in compiling a chronology of women's history. Chronologies gener- ally rely upon indisputable facts that are easily documented, and thus require no formal citation: births, deaths, elections, performances, publications, legislative acts. These two authors have brought different approaches to the problem of documenting the history of women- lives often not documented. James Trager's Women's Chronology traces the history of women, from Lucy March 1995 in 3 million B.C. to Ruth Ginzberg's appointment to the Supreme Court in 1993. The entries follow a strict chrono- logical arrangement, are very well written, and emphasize Western Euro- pean historical facts. It is well illustrated, although one wonders if nineteenth- century Academic paintings give the best portrayal of women in antiquity. Until the mid-nineteenth century, this is primarily a chronology of the privileged or persecuted: queens, consorts, and edu- cated noblewomen, or martyrs, witches, and slaves; and of the laws and political developments as they relate to women. Most of the facts listed could be easily documented. Kirstin Olsen's Chronology of Women's History presents data by category-Gen- eral Status and Daily Life, Government, the Military and the Law; Literature and the Visual Arts, Performing Arts and En- tertainment, Athletics and Exploration; Business and Industry; Science and Medicine; Education and Scholarship; and Religion within time spans. It lacks many of the traditional facts pro- vided by Trager (e.g., Catherine de Medici figures far less prominently) but there are many entries not included in the Trager chronology, among them en- tries .for Irish, British, American, and Chinese women pirates . There are also far more references to women in Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East. The problem with the entries in this chronology is that the facts are pre- sented with no supporting citation, and they often are not the sort of fact that is easily documented: "1851-1855: English prostitutes usually work at their trade part-time to supplement their earnings from their 'legitimate' work. They make about a shilling per customer after fees to pimps are deducted. Prosti- tutes, on the whole, are healthier than other poor women, because their addi- tional income allows them to eat better." (p.124). Both chronologies have subject in- dexes. Both will be useful to libraries with comprehensive collections; the Trager chronology is recommended to libraries with smaller collections.-S.S. LITERATURE Beaumarchais, Jean-Pierre de, and Daniel Couty. Dictionnaire des oeuvres litteraires de langue jran9aise. Paris: Bor- das, 1994. Vols. 1-3 (in progress; to be in 4 volumes). (ISBN 2-04-018550-X). This completes a trilogy along with the same editor's Chronologie de la littera- ture franfaise (Paris: PUP, 1991. 162p.) and the previously published Dictionnaire des litteratures de langue jran9aise (1994. BD997; rev. ed. 1987. 1BD312) which was mainly devoted to authors, schools, liter- ary movements, and concepts. With a team of close to one hundred contributors, the editors collected some 3,700 entries, arranged alphabetically by titles that analyzed French-language works in all fields and from all time pe- riods, including close to eighty titles by Balzac and practically all of Moliere, Racine, and Stendhal. Entries range from a few paragraphs to several pages and follow a standardized format: (1) bibli- ographic data or publication informa- tion, (2) synopsis of the work; (3) literary analysis which discusses themes, drama- tis personae, influences, style, and read- er response, and finally (4) currently available editions, including paperback editions. The work's target audience is not only students of literature but also the intelli- gent and curious general reader who needs some quick reference sources. It covers French literature in the widest possible sense of the term, including not only novels, poems, and drama but also history, philo·sophy, religion, and natu- ral history. One would find here, for ex- ample, the Institution de la religion chretienne by Jean Calvin, the Discours de la methode of Descartes, Michelet' s history of the French Revolution, Foucault's his- tory of mental illness, a few works by Franc;oise Sagan as well as those of Flaubert. The volumes include color plates of major authors' portraits and paintings and etchings relating to their works.-J.S. Contemporary Lesbian Writers of the United States: A Rio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Ed. Sandra Pollack and Selected Reference Books of 1994 135 Denise D. Knight. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1993. 640p. $99.50 (ISBN 0-313-28215-3). LC 92-39468. Contemporary Gay American Novelists: A Rio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Ed. Emmanuel S. Nelson. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1993. 421p. $69.50 (ISBN 0-313-28019-3). LC 92-25762. Furtado, Ken, and Nancy Hellner. Gay and Lesbian American Plays: An Anno- tated Bibliography. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow, 1993. 217p. $27.50 (ISBN 0-8108-2689-5). LC 93-17078. Gay & Lesbian Literature. Ed. Sharon Malinowski. Detroit: StJames Pr., 1994. $85 (ISBN 1-55862-174-1). LC 93-47362. There is surprisingly little overlap be- tween these four new bibliographies. The first two follow the Greenwood- Press pattern of a general introductory essay followed by signed biographical entries addressing the writer's life, ma- jor works and themes, and critical recep- tion, together with bibliographies of primary and secondary works. For the most part, entries are well written, with satisfying bibliographies, although occa- sionally a contributor has done little more than search the Reader's Guide. The first title presents one hundred women writers, the second, with a narrower scope, 57 male novelists. Although many of the seven hundred plays in Gay and Lesbian American Plays have been separately published, the ma- jority have not. For each play included, this excellent guide provides publication information (where applicable), genre, brief synopsis, number of acts, charac- ters, settings, and information about the first production. Information on obtain- ing the play, whether through agent, theater, or playwright, is also provided. Only plays "containing major characters whose gay or lesbian sexuality is integral to the play's message, and plays whose primary themes are gay or lesbian" (In- trod.) were included. Appendixes list plays by title, agents, playwrights, thea- ters, and a brief bibliography of related titles. A form for reporting additional plays is also included. Highly recom- mended, for all libraries with strong drama, theater, and gay /lesbian collections. 136 College & Research Libraries Gay & Lesbian Literature was produced under the aegis of an advisory board composed of members of ALA's Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and it differs from other similar works in that the very complete bibliographies include translations, adaptations, biographies, interviews, recordings, manuscripts, and critical sources. Nearly two hundred writers are profiled (84 women) in es- says which deal primarily with those works explicitly addressing gay themes. Although there is considerable overlap with Contemporary Gay American Novel- ists and Contemporary Lesbian Writers, coverage is also extended outside of the United States and back into the nine- teenth century and early twentieth cen- tury to include such influential writers as Oscar Wilde, Strinburne, Colette, Cavafy, Garcia Lorca, and Virginia Woolf. Indexed by nationality, gender, and subject, with a list of Gay and Les- bian Literary Awards, a very long list of additional authors of gay and lesbian literature, and a bibliography of antholo- gies and critical studies.-S.S. Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory: Approaches, Scholars, Terms. Gen. ed. and comp. Irena R. Makaryk. Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Pr., 1993. 656p. $150; paper $39.95 (ISBN 0-8020- 5914-7). LC 93-213023. The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism. Ed. Michael Groden and Martin Kreiswirth. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Pr., 1994. 775p. $65 (ISBN 0-8018-4560-2). LC 93-12935. Both dictionaries of literary theory place their main emphasis on the twen- tieth century. The Encyclopedia of Contem- porary Literary Theory (hereafter referred to as Toronto) is almost exclusively con- cerned with Anglo-American and Euro- pean literary criticism of the past fifty years with some references to important forerunners such as Freud, Nietzsche, and Virginia Woolf. The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism (hereafter called Johns Hopkins) includes substantial discussions of historical and non-Western materials. Toronto's in- tended audience is not a general reader March 1995 but an "advanced student of literature" (lntrod.), though its lucid and concise style should serve undergraduate litera- ture students as well. Johns Hopkins approaches the task from more interdisci- plinary perspectives: its prospective read- ers are "not only professors and graduate students in literary studies but also many others working in adjacent fields" (Introd.) . Each work is a collaborative endeavor of well over 150 scholars with entries signed and accompanied by a bibliog- raphy. Johns Hopkins arranges articles in one alphabetical sequence, followed by a list of entries and indexes by name and topic. In addition to cross-references in the article,· it provides a number of ap- propriate "see also" references. Toronto divides the book into three parts re- flected in the subtitle of the volume: ap- proaches, scholars, and terms. Although there are cross-references in articles to other entry titles, no overall topical in- dex is provided, only a list of entries. Both works benefited from Canadian sponsorships. The University of Western Ontario provided money and support to the Johns Hopkins publication while the Toronto volume was entirely funded by the University of Ottawa. Among innumerable reference works which do no more than reiterate pre- vious works, these two titles give us some genuine contributions toward un- derstanding the intricate world of con- temporary literary criticism. For those who want to venture beyond the tradi- tional confines of Western civilization, the Johns Hopkins publication takes them beyond Europe and North Amer- ica through its historical summaries of literary theory and criticism in China, Japan, India, the Caribbean, and ~atin America. Both volumes are highly rec- ommended for undergraduate and re- search libraries.-J.S. Essential Bibliography of American Fiction. Ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli and Judith S. Baughman. New York: Facts on File, 1994. (In progress.) Contents: Modern African American Writ- ers ([1994]. 92p.); Modern Classic Writers ' ([1994]. 99p. $18.95); Modern Women Writers ([1994]. lOOp.) The three titles in the series, Essential Bibliography of American Fiction, that have appeared to date share a common source, audience, and format. The series editors have drawn the entries for all three volumes from the Facts on File Bib- liography of American Fiction, 1919-1988 (1991) and Facts on File Bibliography of American Fiction, 1866-1918 (1993). Each volume features at most ten prominent writers, identifies them in a paragraph, lists their bibliographies, their published works, biographies that have been writ- ten about them, interviews they have given, and critical studies-books, book sections, articles, essays-that have ap- peared, taking care to single out the "standard" works. Each volume has its own brief foreword, placing the group of selected writers into a historical con- text, and a chapter dedicated to basic bibliographic sources for the given group of writers as a whole. The same checklist of sources for the study of American fiction, and a brief note re- garding available computerized data- bases in the field appear in all three volumes. The target audience for these slender volumes is the high school and college student. Although there are other biblio- graphic publications that cover the same ground-most notably the Dictionary of Literary Biography, (BD416, 1BD52) and Magills Bibliography of Literary Criticism, (1979. BD13), the specialized focus of each volume in this series, the inclusion of only the most prominent writers, the easy format, the up-to-date biblio- graphies, and the tagging of the most prominent secondary studies should make this series a helpful aid for class- room use.-O.dC. PERFORMING ARTS Simons, Linda Keir. The Performing Arts: A Guide to the Reference Literature. Englewood, Colo.: Libraries Unlim- ited, 1994. 244p. $42 (ISBN 0-87287- 982-8). LC 93-31465. This useful annotated bibliography lists reference works on theater, includ- Selected Reference Books of 1994 137 ing musical comedy and dance, with ad- ditional material on puppetry, mime, magic, and the circus. It excludes music, opera, film, and television; the majority of the works are in English and published in the last thirty years, though some older standard sources have been included. It is divided by type (bibliographies, catalogs, indexes, etc.), and each chapter is further subdivided by subject, usually by theater and dance. Unfortunately, items are then listed alphabetically by author, so browsing is difficult. The chapter entitled "Chronologies and His- tories," for example, is a geographic and chronological mess. It would have been much more useful to list countries to- gether so the reader would not have to continually refer to the index to find the four entries relating to France. There is a useful chapter describing libraries and archives, though, unfortu- nately, with the exception of a Canadian entry, I could find no non-U.S. institu- tions, not even the Victoria and Albert's Theatre Museum. The same parochial- ism applies to the list of professional organizations and societies, limiting its usefulness for scholars. So does the near- total avoidance of non-English titles. There are only three works listed in the index for Germany, and eight for France. So much for Goethe, Schiller,· and Moliere. This is a very useful guide to recent reference works on British and American performing arts, but serious researchers in non-English language fields will have to look elsewhere.-M.C. Slide, Anthony. The Encyclopedia of Vaudeville. Westport, Conn.: Green- wood, 1994. 605p. $75 (ISBN 0-313- 28027-4). LC 93-8632. The author, well-known in the field of popular culture, has provided a brief overview of the academically neglected field of vaudeville, that low-class, vi- brant, pre-television mass entertainment. Fortunately, he was able to interview many of the entertainers so the entries are livelier than standard encyclopedia arti- cles. The entries sometimes reprint brief comedy sketches. The approximately 138 College & Research Libraries five hundred one-to-two page entries, many with brief bibliographies, are ar- ranged alphabetically and include indi- viduals as well as general essays on types of performers, the various circuits, major theaters, etc. There is a short general bibliography and a subject index. Besides being a useful reference book, it is a very good read.-M.C. ARCHITECTURE Weiss, Ellen. An Annotated Bibliography on African-American Architects and Builders. Philadelphia: Society of Architectural Historians, 1993. 15leaves. $5. This is the first publication in the SAH's Teaching Materials in Architectural History series. The arrangement is in six sections: a problem stated (on the dearth of contemporary black practitioners); slave housing and craftsmen; free per- sons of color as builders; early twentieth century professionalization; Paul R. Wil- liams; contemporary practitioners. Weiss explains that much of this material has not yet been included in surveys on American architecture appearing as it did in obscure publications. Current practitioners are also identi- fied in Directory, African American Archi- tects prepared by Bradford C. Grant and Dennis Alan Mann (Cincinnati: Center for the Study of the Practice of Architec- ture, Univ. of Cincinnati, 1991. 32p. $6). These two publications are much needed additions to older art sources, including T.D. Cederholm's Afro-American Artists: A Bio-Bibliographical Directory (1973. BE180) and Dennis Thomison's The Black Artist in America: An Index to Reproductions (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow, 1991. 396p.). Further recent sources for multicultu- ral research in art include David Karel's Dictionnaire des artistes de langue fran9aise en Amerique du Nord: peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs, graveurs, photographes, et or- fevres ([Quebec]: Musee du Quebec: Presses de l'Universite Laval,1992. 962p. $119) and Artists of Chinese Origin in North America Directory = Pei Mei Hua i i shu chia ming jen lu (Westmont, Ill.: Point Gallery, Artists Magazine; Taipei: Inter- national Institute for the Arts, 1993. 281p. $75).-K.C. March 1995 URBAN STUDIES Duensing, Edward E. Information Sources in Urban and Regional Planning: A Di- rectory and Guide to Reference Materials. New Brunswick, N.J.: Center for Urban Policy Research, 1994. 178p. $24.95 (ISBN 0-88285-146-2). LC 93-26775. This compilation of information sources is less a bibliography than a di- rectory of organizations, information services, and government agencies in- volved in the many activities associated with urban and regional planning. The book is arranged in six sections by type of reference source, beginning with Dictionaries and Glossaries (p. 5-8), followed by Indexes and Abstracts (p. 11- 45), a Directory of Directories (p. 49-56), a classified directory of Planning and Planning-Related Organizations (p. 59- 128), four Appendixes covering earlier bibliographic guides, online database vendors, directories of state data centers and graduate education programs in planning (p. 131-57), and finally author, organization and title indexes (p. 161- 78). For the experienced planning librar- ian this is largely a repackaging of other directories. The contents of each section are easily available from a relatively small number of well-known sources. However, as a first source for organizational ad- dresses, telephone and fax numbers, a list- ing of the major abstracting and indexing sources in this multidisciplinary field, or citations to other, more in-depth planning bibliographies, this work will save pro- fessional librarians, planners, and plan- ning students considerable time in the early stages of their research. The two most extensive sections, on indexing and abstracting sources and on planning organizations, are similarly ar- ranged by subdivisions that include cov- erage of general planning, housing and community development, public infra- structure and transportation, urban de- sign and the built environment, energy, environment and natural resources, business and economics, law, and statis- tical, demographic, and spatial analysis, among others. ' There are some notable om1sswns from both the index and database ven- dor lists, such as ABI INFORM (published by UMI. 1CH87), a service which carries many hundreds of articles on planning in its electronic database. Missing from the Directories section is Frances Gretes' Directory of International Periodicals and Newsletters on the Built Environment (2d ed., 1992). Listed sources are not always described fully as to their print or elec- tronic coverage, as is the case with the entry for the Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals (1BE116), whose daily updates on RUN and annual printed supplements and CD-ROM are neither mentioned nor are they indicated as being current. This reference work will nevertheless be useful to large and small planning collec- tions, and to academics, practitioners, and librarians for the convenience of having many basic information sources easily at hand in a single volume.-B.S.A. MILITARY HISTORY Moebs, Thomas Truxtun. Black Soldiers- Black Sailors-Black Ink: Research Guide on African-Americans in U.S. Military His- tory,1526-1900. Chesapeake Bay, Va., and Paris: Moebs Publishing, 1994. 1654p. $250. LC 94-179642. Black Soldiers-Black Sailors-Black Ink is a comprehensive research guide to infor- mation on the participation of African Americans in military service in the pre- 1901 period. Consisting of four volumes and ten appendixes (bound into one gi- gantic 1,654-page book), it includes not only lists of names and facts, but also bib- liographic citations and full-text repro- ductions of selective relevant literature. Volume one is a bibliography of pub- lications on any subject by African Americans who served in the military before 1901, as well as of writings by African-American civilians who wrote about military matters prior to 1901. The bibliography is enhanced by a series of useful features: before listing the work(s) a brief biographical sketch of the author is given; library locations, based on in- formation culled from the National Un- ion Catalog, are indicated for most publications; annotations elucidating Selected Reference Books of 1994 139 the content of the work are often in- cluded; sources for cited works are al- ways indicated; and if the publication is short, it is reproduced in its entirety. Volume two is a Chronology (1526- 1900) of combat and recruiting events, ac- tivities of military units and of individual veterans. Entries for each year are either by personal name or one of a dozen recurring military topics. The facts of the event are briefly narrated, and a reference to the source of the information is given. Much of the factual information found in the chronology can be researched fur- ther by consulting Volume three, the Subject Bibliography, arranged alpha- betically by subject; that is, names of servicemen, state sections, and a distinct set of subject headings. The references are to archival collections, books, journal articles, broadsides, and pamphlets. Anno- tations accompany many of the citations, and an author index concludes the volume. Volume four outlines the history of several hundred African-American mili- tary units from 1729 to 1900. Arranged sequentially by unit number within broad period designations, the entries narrate unit activities, and cite the source of the information. Ten appendixes complement this ma- jor bibliographic and chronological com- pendium. They are: (1) a list by name of African-American officers serving before 1901; (2) African Americans enrolled at the U.S. Military Academy, 1870-1900; (3) those enrolled at the Naval Academy, 1872-1900; (4) members ofthe Black Bri- gade of Cincinnati, Ohio; (5) African- American Medal of Honor winners. Appendix 6 describes and provides the complete text of Civil War circulars and General Orders, Confederate and Union, regarding African Americans. A list of Confederate publications pertaining to African Americans and the Military con- stitutes Appendix 7; information about the redesignation of African-American mili- tary units is contained in Appendix 8. Ap- pendix 9 lists and describes 257 portraits of individual African-American veterans and groups of veterans and cites the pub- lication where the image can be found. Appendix 10 is an inventory of the 140 College & Research Libraries records in theN ational Archives pertaining to the Civil War regiments of the U.S. Col- ored Troops and their predecessor units. A master index concludes this mag- num opus and many illustrations, chiefly reproductions of title pages of books, broadsides and pamphlets, grace the content. This is a first-rate reference book and a real labor of love.-O.dC. HISTORY A Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century World History. Ed. John Belchem and Richard Price. Oxford: Blackwell, 1994. $59.95 (ISBN 0-631-18352-3). LC 93-9841. Cramming all of the nineteenth-cen- tury with its wars, conquests, and scien- tific and ,cultural achievements into 7 46 pages is a daunting task, but the under- graduate appetite for digestible informa- tion is a challenge to publishers. The majority of the long list of contributors are from the United States and Great Britain and, despite attempts at world- wide coverage, there is a definite West- ern emphasis. Jack the Ripper, who is of no significant historical consequence, gets as much space as does Japan, indeed more, because an additional bibliog- raphic source is provided for him and nothing is listed for Japan. The articles can seem somewhat breathless as they try to pack in ideas. Thus in the article on popular culture, the new British working-class culture is said to be "based on the music hall, fish and chips, and seaside holidays." The current nonjudgmental outlook prevails; Shaka' s grim reputation is explained as a European exaggeration, and Jack the Rip- per is described as "an anonymous sex killer of low self-esteem." There are a brief chronology and a few maps. These are useful, but academic li- braries will already have more complete historical tables and more detailed histori- cal maps. This book might by useful for libraries with many undergraduates but most libraries would be better off relying on the various historical dictionaries for individual countries .-M.C. Slavens, Thomas P. Sources of Information for Historical Research. New York: Neal- March 1995 Schuman, 1994. 577p. $39.95 (ISBN 1- 55570-093-4). LC 94-8119. This annotated bibl~ography lists books covering "all continents, as well as sources on the history of civilization, holdings of archives, chronologies, and auxiliaries to the studies on history, such as heraldry, genealogy, and biography" (Pref.). Librarians will recognize the echo of the phrase "auxiliary sciences of his- tory," so it is no surprise to learn that the compiler is a library school professor; unfortunately his experience in the area of history is not mentioned. Many peo- ple are thanked in the introduction but again with no academic qualifications listed. The librarian bent rather than the scholarly bent is confirmed by the ar- rangement-straight Library of Con- gress call number. In fact, the chapters are called CB, CC, CD, etc., with almost half the book in the Z chapter, not the most accessible of arrangements. Look- ing at a page in this chapter turns up Lee Ash's Subject Collections, two guides to European libraries, a manuscript catalog of American Jewish Archives in Cincin- nati, and a guide to the Truman Library- all guides to libraries, yes, but with no chronological or subject coherence. The compiler is also at the mercy of the sometimes arbitrary LC call numbers. Thus the Biographical Dictionary of Ameri- can Mayors is in Z, while most other bio- graphical dictionaries are in C. And, to cite another example, the Dictionary of National Biography is CT770, and the Con- cise Dictionary of National Biography is CT773, a page later. There are some oddities. The compre- hensive index to The Dictionary of Ameri- can Biography is listed, as is the Concise Dictionary of American Biography, but the DAB itself, though mentioned in the an- notation for the index, does not get a separate entry. Writings on American His- tory (DB50) is an annual bibliography sponsored by the American Historical Association and published from 1902 to 1961 by various branches of the U.S. gov- ernment and later volumes through 1990 by Kraus-Thomson. The entry in this guide lists what appears to be a mono- graph entitled Writings on American His- tory, 1902-1961 published by the Govern- ment Printing Office in 1961; the later volumes are not mentioned. The bibliog- raphically inept and incomplete entry for a venerable source in American his- tory does not inspire confidence. Nor do the proofreading errors that a cursory. examination reveals. The index lists America: History and Life as entry 808, but 808 is actually Henry Beers' Bib- liographies in American History: Guide to Materials for Research. Looking up this entry in the index shows that this title and another by Beers are listed as 809. America: History and Life is actually 806. Entry 6, on the third page of the volume, has the heading "Civilization, modern- lOth century," which one presumes is a proofreading error and not a reflection of the compiler's sense of history. There are no non-English works listed so this will be of minimal use to scholars. And its confusing arrangement and sloppy editing do not recommend it to undergraduates or to librarians.-M.C. NEW EDITIONS AND SUPPLEMENTS The cumulative indexing of the Na- tional Union Catalog of Manuscript Collec- tions (DB64) continues with Index to Subjects and Corporate Names in the NUCMC 1959-1984 (Alexandria, Va.: Chadwyck-Healey, 1994. 3 vols. $825) that is designed to accompany the Index of Per- sonal Names in the NUCMC (1DB19). This cumulation brings together all the topical and corporate headings which have ap- peared in the indexes up through 1984. It is unfortunate that the indexing for the 1985 volume was not included since with 1986 the entries can be retrieved through an RLIN search on the AMC file. Sigrid Kramer has revi.sed and consid- erably expanded Paul Oskar Kristeller's Latin Manuscript Books before 1600: A List of the Printed Catalogues and Unpublished Inventories of Extant Collections (4th rev. and enl. ed. Munich: Monumenta Ger- maniae Historica, 1994. 94lp. [MGH Hilfsmittel, 13]; 3d ed. 1965 AA241) be- cause of the numbers of catalogs newly published, the manuscripts that have changed locations, and all the recatalo- Selected Reference Books of 1994 141 ging that has been done since 1965. New place names and libraries are most evi- dent in Section C where the arrangement is by name of city (in the language of the country with cross-references from the English form). Section Dis new, listing directories of libraries and archives. The volume is current to late summer 1992. Complementary to the Aslib Directory of Information Sources in the United King- dom (1AB26) is the Aslib Directory of Lit- erary and Historical Collections in the UK, compiled by Keith W. Reynard ([Lon- don]: Aslib, 1993. 287p.). With 1,030 en- tries and with cross-references, it will be very useful. An entry includes the name of the institution, address, and telephone number with a brief description of the collection, a briefer description of the special collections, and the address to which inquiries should be directed. Treatment is somewhat uneven-the smaller repositories are better covered since the large archival collections al- ready are described more exhaustively elsewhere. The index cites the names and organizations mentioned in the text with some subject headings. Another more specialized guide is the Records of British Business and Industry, 1760-1914: Metal Processing and Engi- neering (London: HMSO, 1994. 188p. £5.50), which is volume 9 of the Guides to Sources for British History Based on the National Register of Archives (DC294, 1DC108). The table of contents best indi- cates those businesses described: metal processing, mechanical engineering, in- strument and scientific engineering, electrical engineering. An entry, ar- ranged by the name of the company, gives an identifying phrase, a brief de- scription of the contents, and the name of the repository. The index cites busi- nesses and there is a gazetteer by county. The publishing history of Kenneth Kister's evaluations of encyclopedias is somewhat confusing. First there was Best Encyclopedias: A Guide to General and Special Encyclopedias (Phoenix, Ariz.: Oryx, 1986) superseded by Kister's Con- cise Guide to Best Encyclopedias (Phoenix, Ariz.: Oryx, 1988. 108p. 1AC7). Now we have Kister's Best Encyclopedias: A Com- 142 College & Research Libraries parative Guide to General and Specialized Encyclopedias (Phoenix, Ariz.: Oryx, 1994. 506p. $42.50), which supersedes both even though the publisher calls it a second edition and refers only to the 1986 edition. The 1994 title describes 1,000 encyclopedias, including elec- tronic formats, and is current as of March 1, 1994. Included are two appendixes: Bibliography of Books and Articles on Encyclopedias, and Directory of ency- clopedia publishers and distributors. The index cites titles of the encyclope- dias evaluated or mentioned as well as a few subject headings. Working Press of the Nation (AE38) has a new publisher and a new arrangement with the 44th edition for 1994 (New Providence, N.J.: National Register Pub- lishing. 4 vols. $330). The Internal Publi- cations Directory, formerly volume 5, is now a section of volume 2, Magazines (with its own index). Joseph W. Sprug compiled a new sup- plement for the Index of Fairy Tales, cov- ering collections published from 1987 to 1992, plus a few earlier titles not pre- viously indexed (Metuchen, N.J.: Scare- crow,1994. 587p. $59.50; for earlier indexes see BD98, 1BD244-1BD254). This cumula- tion treats 310 collections of fairy tales, folktales, myths, and legends and is very useful for extending the motif indexes. The first volume of the International Dictionary of the Theatre, ed. Mark Hawkins-Dady, covered Plays (Detroit: St James Pr., 1992). The second volume also edited by Mark Hawkins-Dady just pub- lished in 1994 (1218p. $115) treats some 485 writers for the stage, illustrated with photos of productions, portraits, and en- gravings. An entry gives a summary of the writer's life and career, a critical overview, and ends with a bibliography which includes a list of the works by the · playwright and a list of bibliographies and critical studies about the play- wright. The volume beginswithAdamde la Halle, thirteenth century, and ends with Carl Zuckmayer, who died in 1977. The third volume will cover actors, directors, and designers. This set is similar to the same publishers' International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers (1BD92). March 1995 Paul Cummings' Dictionary of Contem- porary American Artists (6th ed. N.Y.: St. Martin's, 1994. 786p. $85; 5th ed. 1988. 1BE92) is current through May 1993. It adds forty-one names, while deleting twenty-seven, interleaves names from previous editions, and has an expanded bibliography.-K.C. The Directory of British Architects, 1834-1900, compiled by Alison Felstead, Jonathan Franklin, and Leslie Pinfield for the British Architectural Library (London: Mansell, 1993. 1035p. $300), complements coverage in Howard Colvin's A Biographical Dictionary of Brit- ish Architects, 1600-1840 (BE294) although it lacks the substantial text portions of the latter.-K.C. The International Census of Doctoral Dissertation in Medieval Art, 1982-1993, edited by Dorothy F. Glass (New York: International Center of Medieval Art, 1994. 30p.), is a modestlistingthatcontin- ues those published previously in 1968 and 1980 issues of the ICMA's Gesta. Dissertations are also covered in the six-volume Bibliographie bildende Kunst: deutschspriichige Hochschulschriften und Veroffentlichungen ausserhalb des Buchhan- dels, 1966-1980/Bibliography of the Fine Arts: Bibliography of German-Language Uni- versity Dissertations and Publications outside the Book Trade, 1966-1980 (Munich: Saur, 1992.6 vols. DM2380).-K.C. The Guide to Yale University Library Holo- caust Video Testimonies is in its second edi- tion (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Library, 1994. 245p. $25; 1st ed. 1990. 1 DA84) and has grown to some 567 witness accounts from the 255 earlier described. It is divided into three sections: summaries of the accounts, an index of witnesses (first name and last initial), and the subject index which also includes geo- graphical headings and names of histori- cal figures. Much of the information is also available in the AMC file in RUN. Marie Marmo Mullaney continues her gubernatorial compilations with Bio- graphical Directory of the Governors of the United States 1988 to 1994 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1994. 425p. il. $75; for 1779 to 1988 see AJ62, 1AJ27). Some ninety-four governors of the f~fty states are described with a portrait of each, and a short bibliography ending each entry, usually citing the relevant entry in the Almanac of American Politics (CJ136), and articles in the Chronicle of Higher Educa- tion, various newspapers, and news magazines. The index lists names of the governors and some subject headings; for example, scandals, women, nuclear waste disposal. Even though the ar- rangement is by state, it would have helped to have a list of the governors by state that were treated in the volume. The second edition of State Names, Seals, Flags, and Symbols: A Historical Selected Reference Books of 1994 143 Guide, compiled by Benjamin F. and Bar- bara S. Shearer (Westport, Conn.: Green- wood, 1994. 438p. il. $49.95; 1st ed. 1987, 1DB45) adds the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mari- ana Islands to the coverage of each state. Also new are descriptions by state of representative postage stamps, fairs and festivals, lists of legal holidays and spe- cial observances, and short histories and descriptions of license plates for passen- ger cars. Plates picture some state seals, flags, flowers, trees, birds, stamps, and license plates. Use INTERNET to U C n over ... 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